Family Steering Committee

Condoleezza Rice is a household name. But most Americans still have never heard of the man who wrote a book with her, Philip Zelikow.

As the executive director of the Kean Commission, Zelikow is responsible for framing the agenda. He leads the research staff. He decides what evidence the commission sees.

In April, the world media focused on Rice’s appearance before the commission. She claimed, not for the first time, that no one could have imagined terrorists would use hijacked planes as weapons against buildings. This is a demonstrable falsehood, which Bush himself inadvertently exposed a week later. (See “Bush, Rice and the Genoa Warning”)

Rice’s testimony received mostly bad reviews. The commission was credited with investigative fervor. Few reports bothered to note that in the late 1980s, Rice and Zelikow worked closely together on George H.W. Bush’s national security staff.

Zelikow and Rice co-authored a 1999 book about their experiences in the first Bush White House, “Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft.” The book presents “a detailed and fascinating account of behind-the-scenes discussions and deliberations” during the fall of the Soviet empire, according to Library Journal.

Zelikow again served alongside Rice as a member of the Bush transition team in 2000- 2001, when he took part in White House meetings on the terror threat. Since this was of interest to the 9/11 investigation, the Kean Commission recently called Zelikow as a witness, in a closed-door session.

Now imagine if the judge in a trial was a close associate of the star witness.…

There are many ways to promote peace & justice in our world, but when we face an immediate conflict, indeed a promised “war without end,” it first helps to step back and look at how it all began. Our current “War on (some) Terror” was birthed, if not conceived, on September 11, 2001. That day was a terrible funeral pyre for many, but a golden opportunity for some.

Only a year before, the Project for a New American Century, a think tank for the neocon crowd that now controls the White House and the Pentagon, published a martial wish list entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.” Their report outlined our “urgent need” to inflate defense spending, control Mideast oil, deploy exotic new weapons, and reorganize our forces to fight and win several simultaneous wars. Their stated goal was full spectrum global dominance, a “Pax Americana,” but they grudged that such a transformation would take forever “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor.”

Consider then all the ignored warnings, quashed investigations and missing air defenses that preceded 9/11 and gave them this golden opportunity. And post-9/11 consider Condi Rice’s chilling remarks: “Now, we have an opportunity and an obligation to move forward together. Bold and comprehensive changes are sometimes only possible in the wake of catastrophic events… Just as World War II led to a fundamental reorganization of our national defense structure, so has September 11th made possible sweeping changes in the ways we… Continue reading →

Editor’s Note:
New Zogby poll finds 50 percent of New York City residents and 41 percent of New York state overall think high officials knew about 9/11 in advance and “consciously” failed to take action…

Half of New Yorkers Believe U.S. Leaders Had Foreknowledge of Impending 9/11 Attacks and “Consciously Failed” To Act;

66% Call For New Probe of Unanswered Questions by Congress or New York’s Attorney General, New Zogby International Poll Reveals

(Utica, NY) – On the eve of a Republican National Convention invoking 9/11 symbols, sound bytes and imagery, half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of New York citizens overall say that some of our leaders “knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act,” according to the poll conducted by Zogby International. The poll of New York residents was conducted from Tuesday August 24 through Thursday August 26, 2004. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of +/-3.5.

The poll is the first of its kind conducted in America that surveys attitudes regarding US government complicity in the 9/11 tragedy. Despite the acute legal and political implications of this accusation, nearly 30% of registered Republicans and over 38% of those who described themselves as “very conservative” supported the claim.

“THE TERROR TIMELINE is a tremendous resource that will give readers a truly independent means of judging our government in its errant conduct of the war on terror.”

– PETER LANCE, author of Cover Up and 1000 Years for Revenge

“A spectacular resource that is an essential tool for anyone who is truly interested in understanding the events leading up to 9/11.”

– CRAIG UNGER, author of the House of Bush, House of Saud

“This is the basic book on 9/11. Paul Thompson’s work tells what happened that day, tracing the events leading up to the attack, and what has transpired since. After years of self-serving reports by ineffectual politicians in Washington, there is at last an independent report, based entirely on publicly known facts, that is thorough and reliable. Read it and decide for yourself whether there was a cover-up. It is truly remarkable. Thank God there are people like Thompson.”

–JAMES RIDGEWAY, author of The March to War

“Paul Thompson’s Timeline has served as the definitive source for any researcher attempting to penetrate the mysteries of 9/11. This book [could] effect a major change in the course of U.S. history.”

– PETER DALE SCOTT, author of Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Columbia, and Indochina

“Paul Thompson’s exhaustive and richly detailed research has now provided the world with a veritable treasure trove of 9/11 information. If you want… Continue reading →

The ABC News website has finally acknowledged the existence of alternative research and popular doubts about what really happened on September 11, how and why. We welcome this breakthrough.

We are very pleased that the article by Dean Schabner, published today on the front page of the ABC News website, seems to have fairly quoted two persons among the many citizens pursuing alternative research and actions for justice and full disclosure around 9/11.

We hope that ABC News will follow up with televised broadcasts on this subject, and give a fair hearing to all points of view.

Even as we thank ABC News, we must unfortunately also note that its article adopts a dismissive tone toward doubts about September 11, in advance of full inquiry. The headline is mildly misleading; the unanswered questions about September 11 did not merely “surface” on the eve of Election Day, but have been the subject of untiring work by hundreds of researchers for more than three years and the subject of such best-selling books as The New Pearl Harbor by David Ray Griffin and the recent Crossing the Rubicon by Michael C. Ruppert.

No basis whatsoever is given for the assessment of the ABC Polling Unit that the Zogby International survey of New York residents cited in the article (co-commissioned by 911Truth.org) is “not credible.”

Using the same established methodologies as in other surveys regularly cited by ABC News and other major media, Zogby polled a representative sampling of 808 adult New York… Continue reading →

Nearly five years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, many families continue
to wonder what happened to loved ones who died.

Mindy Kleinberg and Lori van Auken are two such people.

The pair said the attacks of Sept. 11, made them widows.

They spoke to journalism and media studies students Tuesday at the Scholarly
Communication Center of the Alexander Library on the College Avenue campus.

“Those words were very hard to utter. The first time I had to say those
words gave me the shakes,” van Auken said. “Before September 11 we
were typical suburban housewives. September 11, our whole world turned upside
down.”

These two women have not stopped in their pursuit to find the truth about their
husbands, who were killed in the attack, while also wondering how safe America
is.

Kleinberg, van Auken and two other Sept. 11 widows formed the Family Steering
Committee to put pressure on the federal government to force an investigation
of the unsolved murder of those involved in the attacks.

It all started when van Auken received the phone call from her husband after
the planes hit the World Trade Center to tell her he loved her and hopefully
would see her later that day.

“In his voice you could hear panic,” she said. “I couldn’t reach
him. From his message I knew he survived the impact of the plane [crash].”

911Truth.org is disappointed that the Pentagon has released another video which
does not clearly show a Boeing hitting the Pentagon. Despite the hyping of this
release as offering ‘definitive proof’, we are surprised that this inconclusive
video remained hidden to the American people for nearly five years.

Recall that www.Flight77.info documents two years of FOIA requests for 85
videotapes in the possession of the FBI that pertain to the Pentagon
strike. The site’s proprietor, like the steering committee of 9/11truth.org,
is hopeful that a release of this footage will show definitively that a plane
hit the Pentagon so that distracting speculation about the Pentagon attack can
cease. But today’s video does nothing of the sort.

If the Pentagon and the Bush administration truly sought to offer clear evidence
for the official story of the Pentagon strike, why would they choose to release
images that resemble the previously released stills rather than the footage
from the Sheraton, the Citgo gas station, or the Virginia D.O.T that presumably
would show the events more clearly?

We will continue to relentlessly pursue a full investigation of the events surrounding
9/11 and seek justice for the victims, as clearly defined in our mission statement.

- A National Grassroots Campaign to Illuminate the 2006 Electoral Stage with 9/11 Truth.

Fine Motives, Means & Opportunities

To commemorate the great 9/11 Commission cover-up released on July 22, 2004, 9/11truth.org and MUJCA-Net are proud to announce the launch of “Politics 911″ — a focused 4-month campaign to enlighten the 2006 electoral debate with a nationwide spotlight on 9/11 truth.

As the name implies “Politics 911″ is an emergency campaign to help return democratic control, self-respect and political adulthood to the American electorate. To that end we plan to gratefully exploit:

the rising tide of 9/11 skepticism;

the dispersion & diversity of local 9/11 activist groups;

the organizing & communicative genius of the Internet;
and

the political theater of the 2006 elections

in order to saturate pre-election events with substantive 9/11 truth questions and their implications for revolutionary reform.

Course of Action

The campaign’s initial goal is to require every candidate running for the US House or Senate in 2006 to publicly declare whether he/she will support a truly independent re-investigation* of the events surrounding 9/11 including evidence of US government foreknowledge, facilitation and/or complicity. This will be accomplished and augmented with the following steps:

Develop a Roster of all Senate and Congressional candidates from all parties;

Poll Each and Every Candidate (locally and personally, when possible) regarding their awareness of/interest in 9/11 issues, and their support for a new and truly independent investigation.* This includes all independents and third party challengers from the Greens, Libertarians, Reform Party,… Continue reading →

Rice Loyalist Headed 9/11 Commission Probes

Bob Woodward’s State of Denial provides evidence of the politicization of the 9/11 Commission’s investigative process, conclusions, and certain omissions from its report, as well as then national security advisor Condoleezza Rice’s likely role in burying unflattering, damning evidence through the appointment of Bush/Rice loyalist Philip Zelikow as the Commissions’ chief investigator and Zelikow’s reward (perhaps) of a top senior-level position in the State Department, which Rice now heads. First, some background.

One of the burning questions in newspapers, cable TV news, and blogs is why the 9/11 Commission report did not mention the July 10, 2001 meeting called by then-CIA Director George J. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Tenet and Black hoped to impress on Rice the compelling need to act immediately against bin Laden because there was “a huge volume of data” suggesting strongly that a major attack was imminent.

“But both men came away from the meeting feeling that Ms. Rice had not taken the warnings seriously,” writes Woodward.

The July 10 meeting between Tenet, Black and Rice went unmentioned in the various reports of investigations into the Sept. 11 attacks, but it stood out in the minds of Tenet and Black as the starkest warning they had given the White House on bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Though the investigators had access to all the paperwork on the meeting, Black felt there were things the commissions wanted to know about and things they didn’t want to know about.…

February 12, 2007 — When it comes to 9/11, America right now is divided between two camps, those who trust the official account of the attacks, and those who, well, have questions. It’s occasionally the case that the first camp will publicly denounce the second camp as a bunch of nutcases, and when this happens, it’s usually the rowdier section of Camp Two, the Loose Change , bullhorn-wielding, “death to the New World Order” crowd, that takes the most heat.

What tends to get ignored, however, is the quieter section of Camp Two, and especially a group of widowed mothers from New Jersey and New York who over the last six years have worked harder than just about anyone to protect the country from terrorism. Few people realize that had it not been for the tireless efforts of the “Jersey girls” — Mindy Kleinberg, Kristen Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Patty Casazza, and Monica Gabrielle — not only would the 9/11 Commission never have happened, but there most likely never would have been any investigation into what was the worst loss of life on American soil since the Civil War. No inquiry into our failed military defenses, or the collapse of the towers, or just why it was that President Bush sat in that Florida classroom for a full seven minutes after the second plane struck. No scientific reports, no effort to discover what went wrong, no hearings of any kind. No attempt to figure out the details… Continue reading →

While the morning rain and the threat of afternoon rain prevented “Annie and the Vets” from providing music at the 4/11/2007 Impeach Bush/Cheney rally, a substantial crowd gathered in the last-minute sunshine on Lytton Plaza in downtown Palo Alto, amidst a giant replica of the flawed 9/11 Commission Report, two smoking towers labeled Constitution and Bill of Rights, many colorful banners calling for impeachment, and a huge “Deception Dollar” banner.

The first marches demanding a Congressional Investigation into 9/11 were held in Palo Alto in January 2002, followed by further marches in January of 2003 demanding “Pre-Emptive Impeachment.” Marches for impeachment are now a monthly occurrence and converged yesterday with a monthly 9/11 Truth action. The rally began with a bit of history and Congresswoman Eshoo’s response to the previous rally on March 14th. Eshoo wrote:

“I’ve lived through an impeachment process and witnessed firsthand how it tears the country apart. The election in November was a resounding rejection of the President’s policies and the policies of his party. I think it’s time to bring the country together and move forward. In my view, impeachment will heavily distract from the important work of reversing the disastrous course this Administration has set and will virtually bring to a halt progress on important issues including healthcare and global warming.”

The primary organizer of the rally, Carol Brouillet, read her response to Eshoo:

There is a tremendous difference between the charges leveled against Bill Clinton and those that are being directed towards Bush… Continue reading →

From August 3rd – 12th, 911truth.org will join a coalition of organizations
to help host “Answers For 9/11 Families” week. Hundreds
of Americans will come together at house parties across the country to screen
the acclaimed film featuring the September 11th families, 9/11 Press For
Truth.

This stunning movie exposes the government’s and the media’s failure to answer
the many important questions of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee, a group
of twelve victim’s relatives who tenaciously fought the White House to force
the creation of the 9/11 Commission. Six of them tell their story first-hand
in the movie, revealing for the first time that “70% of our questions”
were not answered by the Final Report. The movie stitches together rare overlooked
news clips, buried stories, and government press conferences to clearly detail
a pattern of deception by U.S. officials.

(NOTE: Simple instructions on how to make your house party film screening a
success will be emailed to everyone who signs up to host a party. Please order
your DVD immediately after signing up in order to ensure it arrives in time
for your house party.)

“We thought the country was at risk from terrorists and from incompetence,”
says Jersey widow Lorie Van Auken in the movie, “and maybe worse.”
Fellow ‘Jersey Girl’ Patty Casazza puts it more succinctly: “They lied.…

The official story of 9/11 is riddled with internal contradictions. One of these contradictions involves the question of how long President Bush remained in classroom in Sarasota, Florida, on the morning of 9/11.

Bush was there to publicize his education policy by being photographed listening to students read. He arrived at the school at 8:55 AM, at which time he reportedly first learned that a plane had struck one of the Twin Towers. Dismissing the crash as an accident, Bush said that they would go ahead and “do the reading thing anyway.”

Bush entered the second-grade classroom of teacher Sandra Kay Daniels at about 9:03. At about 9:06, the president’s chief of staff, Andrew Card, came in and whispered in Bush’s ear, telling him, Card later reported, “A second plane hit the second Tower. America is under attack.”

What Happened Next

Thanks to Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11, which came out in 2004, the world knows what happened next: Bush remained sitting there minute after minute after minute.

Journalists, however, had reported Bush’s strange behaviour much earlier. On September 1, 2002, for example, Jennifer Barrs had reported in the Tampa Tribune that, after Card whispered in Bush’s ear, the president picked up his book and read with the children “for eight or nine minutes.” In his 2002 book Fighting Back, Bill Sammon, the White House correspondent for the Washington Times, said that even after the reading lesson was over, Bush… Continue reading →

As someone also motivated by the need for the truth about 9/11, as well as aware of the way conflicts of interest have a way of covering up truth, let me add my thanks to Philip Shenon on the release of his new book. Also let me share this recent comment forwarded to me by Monica Gabrielle of the September 11th Advocates:
*****

Philip Shenon’s new book, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, serves to justify our suspicions and the concerns of the Family Steering Committee, that we attempted to publicly air during the course of the 9/11 Commission’s tenure.

One of the most egregious revelations put forth by Mr. Shenon is the fact that Philip Zelikow was hired as the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, despite his direct ties to the Bush administration. In 2000-2001 he served as a member of Condoleezza Rice’s National Security Council (NSC) transition team, where he was allegedly the “architect” of the decision to demote Richard Clarke and his counter terrorism team within the NSC. Furthermore he was a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) from 2001-2003, where Zelikow drafted most of the 2002 “National Security Strategy of the United States,” creating the pre-emptive Iraq war strategy. These areas were within the scope of the Commission’s mandate and as such were of critical importance to determine what, if any, impact they had on the government’s ability to prevent the 9/11 attacks.

As the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow was given the responsibility for choosing the entire direction of the Commission’s investigation.…

5/28–SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Joining John and Kyle will be 9/11 Family Member, and “Jersey Girl” Lorie Van Auken who lost her husband Kenneth Van Auken.

This week’s debate on Air America’s “Clout” with Richard Greene is destined to be a special one. As it stands right now, the two confirmed “pro-Truth” guests to appear are Kyle Hence, and John Judge, the founders of 9/11 CitizensWatch. Citizenswatch was a watchdog group of the 9/11 Commission that worked alongside the 9/11 Family Steering Committee. Along with the families, they called for the resignation of Executive Director Philip Zelikow, and at one point, they started an advertising campaign “demanding that Bush, Cheney, Clinton, Gore and Rice testify publicly, and under oath before the commission.” They ran “billboard advertisements in the Washington metro rail system for four weeks, as well as quarter-page ads in The Washington Post.” Thus far the one confirmed guest who does NOT agree that we need another investigation is Daniel Pinchbeck, the author of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, Tarcher, 2006 and editorial director of the web magazine, Reality Sandwich. Daniel’s position is that we need to move forward, not back.

Kyle Hence is the Executive Producer of “9/11: Press For Truth”, and “In Their Own Words: The Untold Stories Of the 9/11 Families”. John Judge has worked as the Special Projects Assistant to Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, has been a member of COPA for years, and is writing a critique of the 9/11 Commission Final Report for the 9/11 Research Center.…

Intro, continued: Scott Horton, of AntiwarRadio.com, interviewed Sibel Edmonds and the blogger who’s long covered her important case (which the corporate media still refuses to touch), Luke Ryland, to shine some light on what might be happening here. Again, Congress refuses to hold hearings, and hold anyone to account. This interview reviews some of the information that’s come to light in Sibel’s 6-year case, as well as the utter lack of action by Congress with regard to the entire network of whistleblowers with whom she’s associated.

Sibel on Congress: “What happened to all those promises you made? All the promises they made, none of them were fulfilled! They may look like champions, but all we have gotten with people like Chairman Waxman and Chairman Conyers is all barking … as soon as the issue dies down in the media, they just go away. They don’t do anything. They haven’t brought about any type of accountability, any type of meaningful hearings … nothing that in any way would bring with it type of accountability or further action, and they do have the power. … (Before, the blamed the Republicans) now we see that with the Democrats across the House, like Pelosi. … If the mainstream media were to do their job that would create the necessary pressure on Congress so that Congress would do what it’s supposed to do; it’s not doing favors, it’s basically fulfilling their obligation to the American public. This is why we are in this sorry… Continue reading →

911Truth.org is honored to host another in our series of monthly Grassroots Development calls this evening, and invite you to listen by phone or internet. As we approach the seventh anniversary of 9/11, we turn our attention this month to the family members and first responders most directly affected. The truth movement owes much to those who lost family members on 9/11/01 and to the first responders, who continue to carry the torch for justice. Without them, our quest for truth and accountability regarding the 9/11 attacks would certainly not have gotten as far as it has. They have exposed corruption while touching the hearts of many, and we offer them an opportunity to speak to us directly tonight.

Berkeley, CA, October 22, 2008 — On October 18, 2008, an OpEdNews article titled,
"8 House Members View Draft Bill on Independent Science/Tech Probe of WTC
1, 2, 7 Collapses," was published by four members of the group Scholars for
9/11 Truth & Justice (STJ911.org). The authors of the article and draft bill
are not spokespersons for Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, and therefore
are individually responsible for it.

Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice does not endorse the draft bill due to the
inclusion of numerous unscientific claims and misrepresentations, and condemns
in the strongest of terms any associations between the organization and the claims
presented by the authors of this bill. As stated at the front page of their website,
Scholars for 9-11 Truth and Justice "take[s] care to present the strongest,
most credible research available…"

While in agreement with the authors of this bill that a new investigation into
the tragic events of September 11, 2001 is warranted, representatives of the Scholars
group note that the draft bill and article lack basic scientific rigor and credibility,
with statements such as, "the entire WTC [complex] was destroyed by directed
energy weaponry (DEW)," and the ideas that "nuclear materials, missiles
or DEW weapons were used." The sister publication of the Scholars group,
The Journal of 9/11 Studies… Continue reading →